


now I remember (what it feels like to fly)

by bea_meupscotty



Series: Unfinished [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, fluff??, no beta we die like men, starts pre-timeskip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21691591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_meupscotty/pseuds/bea_meupscotty
Summary: He was far too professional to have favorites, but she was his favorite student.Or, I got an Ingrid/Seteth paired ending and I decided to write them the love story they kind of didn't get in-game.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Seteth
Series: Unfinished [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575550
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	1. untangled all the strings

**Author's Note:**

> *whispers to self* _this was supposed to just be a drabble this was supposed to just be a drabble_... now i have an outline of like, 7 more chapters of this?? i'll add more tags as they become relevant
> 
> title and chapter titles from butterflies by kacey musgraves.

The water was impossibly blue in the sunlight beating down from the cloudless sky. It would be a beautiful place to spend time, Ingrid thought, comparing it mentally to the icy, barren fields that spread across the lands of House Galatea. Or rather, it would be a beautiful place to spend time when there weren’t pirates bearing down on them from across the beach. She shifted on her mount, gripping her lance more tightly as she rose into the air, surveying the scene and letting her appreciation for the sea fade away as she focused on the mission before them; there was a holy site that needed protection, dear to Flayn and Seteth, and, as much as the stern and inscrutable Seteth, with his gruff manner but kind eyes, intimidated her, made her desperate for his approval, she’d grown very fond of soft, sweet Flayn in the few months that she’d been a part of their class. 

So, when Seteth rose on his wyvern and called out to them that _he_ would go and secure the cemetery and the shrine in it, and she heard Flayn give out a desperate little cry as her brother soared over the water towards the smaller islands, towards the waiting pirates, more reckless than Ingrid thought him capable of, Ingrid found herself pulling her mount up and turning towards the sea. 

“I’m coming with you!” she cried out over the sea winds, looking down to see her prince and her professor giving her approving nods as the pegasus beat its wings furiously to catch up with the head start Seteth had.

“Wha—no! Stay with the others, this is far too dangerous!” Seteth was frowning at her, but Ingrid just shook her head stubbornly.

“What’s dangerous is charging off alone like this. There’s no way the others could get here in time if you were in trouble, if they had to cross the shoal on foot.” 

Seteth was still frowning at her, brow furrowed as he paused in his flight. “You are just a student, and it is my duty to keep you _safe_ above all else.” 

A burst of flame from one of the mages on the chain of islands below caught him by surprise, and he cried out as he narrowly avoided the burn, his wyvern shrieking beneath him. In an instant, Ingrid was diving, her smaller pegasus mount nimbly dodging the follow-up attack as she caught the mage with her lance before dodging out of range of the swordsman next to him and back up to join Seteth. 

“You were saying?” It was a little less respectful than she usually was with her professors, with the advisor to the archbishop, but, well, she was panting from the effort of _saving his life_ , and he just gave her a solemn nod, a hint of a smile, and then they were off. 

Together, they made short work of the Western Church followers on the islands, Seteth leading the charge with his larger, stronger wyvern, bearing down with powerful attacks, and Ingrid darting behind him to finish them off, covering his flank, before the pair turned back to to beach, where the rest of the class, in a tight formation, were dispatching the remainder of the pirates as they attempted to flee. One of the few remaining pirates attempted to escape on the cliff ledge above the beach, only to be brought down by an almost simultaneous arrow and blast of magical wind from Ashe and Annette, who gave each other small smiles. 

“They look to have the beach handled,” Seteth said, either to himself or to her, she couldn’t tell, absentmindedly rubbing the neck of his wyvern. 

“Yes,” Ingrid said feebly, not sure what else to say, as they watched the handful of remaining pirates, trapped between the cliffs and the advancing students. 

“Thank you,” Seteth finally said, looking over at her. She thought she could see a hint of color high on his cheeks, but maybe it was just the cold sea air or the exertion of the past few minutes. “You were right to join me. It was reckless to come out here alone. I apologize for putting you in danger with my actions. I… I let my emotions get the better of me.” His eyes drifted down to the islands below them, to the little shrine. 

Ingrid wanted to reach out and put an arm on his shoulder, the way she would’ve done for Sylvain, or Dimitri, comforting and companionable, but he was _Seteth_ , and no matter how much she’d one-sidedly grown to admire the man’s efficiency and fairness, his noble demeanor, his care for each of the students, his doting on Flayn, she knew she was just another student to him, and besides all of that, he was on his wyvern, out of reach unless she repositioned her pegasus to be uncomfortably close to him. So she settled for giving him a warm smile. 

“This shrine must be very special to you and Flayn.” 

Blinking, he looked back at her. “It is. I…” He gave her a considering look, and Ingrid tried not to shrink under what she felt certain was an assessment, though of what she couldn’t tell. “This shrine is also the site of my wife’s grave.” 

“Oh,” Ingrid breathed, looking at Seteth in a new light. She’d imagined him as a lifelong bachelor, dedicated to the church and to his sister, too busy with the important work of the church for such mundane, worldly concerns as romance, but… he had loved, and he had lost. And now Ingrid _really_ wished they weren’t on their mounts, because even if she had never loved Glenn quite like that, had thought of him as a dear friend and someone she admired and respected and wanted to be like, she had loved him nonetheless, and she knew how much his death had hurt. She could only imagine what it must have been like for Seteth. “I am… very sorry. I… I cannot pretend to know firsthand what that loss must have been like for you, but… you may know, my fiancé Glenn died at Duscur… I just… I can imagine some of the pain you must feel.” 

Seteth was looking rather strangely, intensely, and Ingrid worried that she was overstepping her bounds, so she closed her eyes and just said, “I am very glad that we were able to help you defend this site.” 

She heard Seteth answer her, voice sounding heavy with emotion, “I am very glad you were able to help as well. Thank you, Ingrid. Truly.” 

Ingrid looked back to see Seteth still looking at her with that odd look on his face, eyes shining and just the hint of a smile though it remained stubbornly grave, and she had just enough time to give him a small smile of her own before Flayn’s voice rang out across the beach.

“Brother! Brother, we’ve done it!”


	2. round my wings that were tied

He knew all of the students, in the most basic sense, so of course he’d known the daughter of Count Galatea. As she spent more time at the academy though, he came to know more than her family name and the recommendations she’d sent with her application—“dedicated”, “mature”, “diligent”, “eager to learn”—but to know the person behind the words. Even before the professor had her in the skies on a pegasus, he’d seen her in the pens when he went down to care for his wyvern, brushing and cleaning the creatures with focused attention. When he gave guest lectures to Byleth’s class, Ingrid was always sitting near the front, giving him her full attention—unless it was momentarily caught by the need to wrangle Sylvain into obedience, which she always did with terse efficiency and no shortage of affection. 

He’d never have admitted it, because he was far too professional to have favorites, but she was his favorite. When he’d come upon her in the cathedral, frowning and pacing, he’d realized that perhaps his favorite student had hidden depths he’d never thought to contemplate—that maybe she was like a current in the sea, placid, mature, determined on the surface, turbulent dark beneath. Listening to her explain her situation, the tinge of sadness that hinted at the burden she carried despite her strong voice and matter of fact manner of speaking—“we could barely feed our troops”, “my family hung its future on me”—he felt something in his chest twinge at the thought of Ingrid, always strong, always there for others, slowly stifled beneath the weight of her Crest, expectations, an unsuitable marriage. Which was maybe why he spoke with uncharacteristic frankness and emotion, fighting to keep his voice in that steady authoritative tone and not show his anger and sadness—“You are a person, first and foremost. And you should be permitted to grow as a person, Crest or not.” And when Ingrid smiled at him, and agreed, and thanked him, for some reason that ache intensified. And when she told him, against the backdrop of wings beating and the glittering blue sea on the Rhodos Coast, that she had lost someone too, a fiancé, he thought that maybe the ache had become permanent. 

So when he was in the wyvern pen, training young Cyril, and he saw Ingrid’s pegasus touch down in the next paddock over, armor dull and scratched and white coat darkened by heavy, matted blood, the shame and anger on Ingrid’s face apparent even from where he stood, he didn’t think twice before he told Cyril to wait and started over for the pegasus pen. He didn’t remember the professor having let them know that they’d set off for their mission this month, but the professor had broad discretion to take the students out on training runs. He just wanted to make sure that his favorite student was alright, he told himself, to monitor the professor’s training regimen. 

Sylvain and Felix had managed to beat him to the pen, somehow, still wearing their bloodstained armor, and Seteth slowed, hesitating in the doorway—definitely _not_ eavesdropping, since he was much too professional to eavesdrop. Just… inadvertently overhearing. 

“Ingrid, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Of course I’m not okay, this is all my fault. I can’t believe I dragged you all into this mess. I just feel so—ugh, I’m so stupid—” 

“Ingrid, c’mon, you’re always getting me out of scrapes. This has barely tipped the scales, really.” 

“It was a good training opportunity.” He could hear the slight, unfamiliar smirk in the Fraldarius heir’s voice as he continued, “Let me know if you need any more dastardly husbands dispatched. This one was almost a challenge.” 

_Dastardly husands_? What had happened? Seteth reached out a hand for the wall to steady himself as his brain flashed through a horror story of imagined scenarios—from the mundane but blood-chilling, a rushed marriage to a wealthy man who would manhandle and hurt her before he saw a woman like Ingrid as his equal, to the honestly ridiculous, ones that he really blamed Flayn and perhaps his own penchant for fables for, Ingrid locked in a tower. Really, though, Ingrid would never get herself trapped in a tower, she was too smart and strong for that, and she could just fly out on her pegasus, anyway. Lost in inane thought, his hand grasped aimlessly for something to hold onto, and instead managed to knock a shovel off of where it hung on the wall, sending it clattering to the ground with a clang that felt deafening. 

He bent down to pick up the shovel and, standing up, came face to face with his three students. 

“I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted, I came to get… this,” he said, trailing off in a manner even he could admit was lame, as he held up the shovel. A perfectly mundane shovel. There were dozens of them around the monastery, there was no need for him to be in the pegasus pen for a shovel. What would he be shoveling, anyway?

Felix just rolled his eyes, and Ingrid was too busy turning away from him, rapidly wiping at her face to cover up—tears? had Ingrid been _crying_?—and he was so disturbed at the thought of Ingrid, who seemed to bear her ever present, ever increasing burdens with constant equanimity, being reduced to tears, that he almost failed to notice the exasperated look Sylvain—Sylvain, of all people—shot him, with a pointed glance at the shovel. 

He ignored the glance and focused on Ingrid, who had stopped hiding her face and had instead apparently decided to hold her head high, as if her skin weren’t blotchy red and her eyes weren’t puffy with recently shed tears. 

“I was… unaware of a training mission. Is everything alright?” 

“Everything is fine—” Ingrid began, at exactly the same time as Sylvain, with a shrewd glance that reminded Seteth that there was maybe more to the young lancer than his womanizing reputation, said— “Ingrid’s latest suitor turned out to have some extremely questionable business dealings, and when we found out he thought he could kidnap her.” 

“Sylvain!” Ingrid said, voice sounding slightly strangled and face growing redder.

For his part, Seteth just blinked, willing the rage within him to settle before he said something that he regretted. Kidnap—like Ingrid, like any of his students, like _any person_ was a prize to be won and kept, a thing to take and keep, not a person who brushed the horses when they weren’t asked and gave what little pocket change they had to the poor children in the village. 

“Was he dispatched?” Seteth said in a tone that was aiming for dispassionate but came out cold, aware that he hadn’t hidden his rage quite as well as he’d hoped when Felix’s head whipped around to look at him curiously. 

Sylvain seemed almost smug when he replied. “Routed entirely. Ingrid herself knocked him from his horse with one hit—you should have seen the look on his face.”

“Good,” Seteth said, directing his response at Ingrid this time. “That is… good. I… You did well.” 

He watched Ingrid’s shoulders soften, some of the tension easing out of them, and some of the tightness in his own chest eased. Had she thought he’d be mad? That she had any reason to be ashamed? That she should shoulder any of the blame for a situation that circumstance had forced her into? 

He realized the silence had stretched on too long, and coughed. “I should be returning—” 

“Seteth, sir?” Cyril’s voice called from just outside the pen. 

“Ah, yes, Cyril, I’m coming. I’ve, er, I’ve retrieved the shovel.” 

“The shovel?” Cyril sounded confused, and he grabbed the boy by the shoulder, turning him around and walking briskly back towards the wyverns. 

“Yes, the shovel,” he said, with a glare at the younger boy, ignoring the sound of snickering from behind him. 

“Why are you laughing, Sylvain?” Ingrid’s voice floated out from the stables, sounding genuinely perplexed and a bit defensive.

“No reason, no reason at all.”


End file.
